University of California, Los Angeles, Athletics
UCLA Gymnastics: Building Another Championship Season
October 21, 2010 | Gymnastics
Oct. 21, 2010
By Lauren Seligman
Cooperation, the fourth building block in John Wooden's Pyramid of Success, is about coming together to work for everyone's benefit. Coach Wooden said it best: "Working with others makes us much more than we could ever become alone." Cooperative efforts occur where actions are helping everyone involved; they do not require sacrifice or selfishness. We achieve more when we are all working in the same direction towards the same goal.
Cooperation comes into play in the interactions between gymnasts, coaches, and support staff. It can be found everywhere from team assignments in practice, to choreographing a routine, and rehabbing an injury. In the gym, cooperation occurs when the girls do standing back tucks (back flips) in their warm-up. The girls stand in a circle and do back tucks as if they were doing the wave in the crowd at a sporting event. Each girl needs to stick their tuck in a row for the whole group to be able to move on with practice. If one person misses, the whole group repeats. Everyone needs to be focused and on the same page for the whole group to succeed.
Choreographing floor routines requires a cooperative effort on the part of the girls and Miss Val. The girls don't hear their music in advance, so when new floor music is played for the first time you'd think it was Christmas with all of the excitement. Over the course of a week or so, what starts as an image in Miss Val's head comes to life. Working with an athlete, she pays careful attention to detail in everything down to the direction of the girl's eyes and fingers on a given pose. The gymnast's cooperation comes into play with their open-mindedness to try new things and trust Miss Val. Each movement needs to be precise and exact, and if something isn't quite right it gets meticulously reevaluated. Working together, Miss Val and her gymnasts share feedback and make endless revisions treating each floor routine as a mini-piece of art constantly evolving toward a masterpiece.
The gymnasts and coaches are not the only pieces to the puzzle. Behind the scenes, a staff athletic trainer, two student trainers, an athletic performance coach, a nutritionist, and an academic counselor are contributing to the girl's success. The girls work with the trainers to get taped in the gym, rehab their injuries, and maintain a healthy body. Their strength coach coordinates conditioning outside the gym twice a week. They see an athletic counselor to help them choose their classes and make a plan to graduate. Cooperation between all of the coaches, gymnasts, and support staff is crucial to building a championship team. When all the pieces come together, amazing things can happen.
